From the desk of the BMS World Mission General Director

14 July 2011

the power of story (2)

Colin Harris, Professor of Religion at Mercer University in the States, sent me a very helpful and encouraging email following my previous post on the subject of the narrative structure of the Bible versus the non-narrative nature of the Qur’an. With Colin’s permission I quote from his email:

“Students sometimes discover that how people can use the Bible in a “non-narrative” way (similar to the divine dictates of the Qur’an) and they are struck by how similar fundamentalists can be to what they perceive Muslims to be. Occasionally I get to see the liberation of one making the change from seeing the Bible as a set of propositions to be believed and obeyed to seeing it as a story to embrace and join, as you put it so well".

This is intriguing. Not only is the non-narrative style of the Qur’an arguably a weakness that impairs engagement for today’s Muslims, but Colin suggests that if Christians interpret the Bible in a similar way, i.e. extracted from its narrative context and used as a set of dictates, we run the risk of slipping into a Christian version of fundamentalism ourselves.

As I was mulling this over, I came across a similar sentiment expressed by Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi, contained in a comment piece by Christopher Howse writing in The Tablet (25 June 2011). Howse quotes from an interview Sacks gave in The Times on 18 June and says

‘In a remark that might also be made on behalf of Catholic exegetes, Lord Sacks declared that there was no contradiction between science and the book of Genesis: “No rabbi ever read Genesis literally until modern times!” This complements [Sacks’] definition of fundamentalism as “the attempt to move from text to application without interpretation”’

Drawing these strands together is fascinating. As I commented in the previous post, the narrative style of scripture allows us to engage with the story of what God is doing through history – redemption history. Without a narrative, other religious texts or secular ideologies fail to help us find a meaningful narrative. Two risks then emerge:

As Colin Harris then points out, the first is the risk of a Christian fundamentalism that is every bit as imprisoning as the fundamentalism we reject in others. We end up with a dogma-driven or rules-based approach to faith, pharisaical in nature and at its worst life-quenching rather than life-giving.

Much of the Catholicism of my youth bore this characteristic, and I see it still today in mission work where outside missionaries import their doctrinal distinctives and impose them on others.

The second risk is the one that Jonathan Sacks refers to, namely that because texts do not live in a vacuum, once detached from their context (or story) they will demand another to give an alternative meaning as we leap clumsily from text to application without giving sufficient attention to context.

So, for example, the breathtaking story of the God who creates the cosmos and all living things, and humankind whose maleness and femaleness echoes something hidden deep in the heart of the Trinity becomes reduced to the impoverished concept of a 6-day burst of activity, with God presumably checking his wristwatch!

No, we will not walk that road. Thank God for the captivating story of the Bible. Let us never take it for granted. Let us be ready in season and out of season to commend it to others.

Comments

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Hi David,
Great to read your thoughts on this. I'm finding it helpfully challenging to reflect on how we can commend and communicate the Bible's story to those for whom it is an unknown quantity - in our cases, here in Thailand. I'm studying a very interesting module on Biblical Theology via LST by distance learning, and this is a key issue in that module. I've enjoyed reading Goheen and Bartholomew's 'Drama of Scripture'.

Interesting too to read your comment on outside missionaries importing their doctrinal distinctive and imposing them on others. I was at just such an event last night! High budget, slickly run event - but the drama, the presented music, the preaching, the 'sinner's prayer' and response time ran to a very set pattern - and it was Korean, not Thai. Food for thought!
Pete

Hi Pete - that module sounds interesting. I hadn't heard of Goheen and Bartholomew's 'Drama of Scripture' but a quick search tells me it has excellent reviews. I'm delighted you're finding time to pursue these studies, knowing that life is hardly a stroll in the park for you all. Hope to catch up some time. David